Google has updated the Google My Business API to add some support for creating and editing Google Posts. Google Posts is a feature that allows people and businesses to create content directly on Google that can appear highly ranked in Google search results for their names.
In version 4.0 of the API, Google noted that “you can now create Posts on Google directly through the API.” The changelog include a bunch of other features, but the Google Posts is the most notable.
Technically, this can enable third-party developers and tool designers to automate a lot of the posting in the Google Posts interface, similar to the way brands manage their social accounts with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others.
As Mike Blumenthal said, this is limited to “business[es] with fewer than 10 locations.” Blumenthal says Google appears to be testing support for chains with more than 10 locations.
It will be exciting to see which third-party tools add support for Google Posts

Google just introduced its latest advanced API integration for AdWords Scripts: Google Slides. That means you can now programmatically connect AdWords with Google Slides.

Leo Sei, Google’s Product Manager for AdWords Scripts, told me why they created this new integration: “The goal of AdWords Scripts is to help advertisers automate their workflow. After talking with advertisers, we found that many share scripts output through slide decks, and this involved a manual step of copying AdWords data into the presentation. So we worked hard to integrate Slides API directly in Scripts to allow advertisers to automate the entire process.”
I feel I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but here’s yet another new capability from Google that can help us with PPC reporting. And considering the amount of time the average account manager spends preparing reports for stakeholders, any new technology that has the ability to automate some of this work is worth looking into.
So, let me show you how

Google has added some new features to the Google My Business API. They are now up to version 3.1 and in that upgrade they added several features. The Google My Business API lets businesses quickly update their Google Maps listings programmatically.
The upgrade includes:

Notifications: You can now subscribe to push notifications for new reviews.
Maps URLs: Google Maps URLs are included in location responses allowing users to easily link to Google Maps.
Location States: Additional Location States indicating when the listing is published, disabled, pending verification.
Reopen Flag: canReopen flag indicates permanently closed locations that can be reopened vs. those that cannot.
Attributes: Support for URL and Enum attributes.
Category Endpoint: Get a list of supported categories by country and language (replaces csv files).

Mike Blumenthal has some more insights on his blog.
The post Google My Business API adds features in version 3.1 appeared first on Search Engine Land.

As it’s the time for New Year’s resolutions — high ideals for which we aim in order to improve our lives in any number of ways — my advice to you is to resolve to increase the amount of automation used within your SEM campaigns.
Why? Well, my philosophy has always been that an account manager’s strategy will be the making or breaking of a client campaign. Small changes here and there can nudge performance in the right direction, but an overall vision is what can lead to changes that help performance reach a global, rather than local, maxima.
So it would seem odd to be advocating as much automation as possible. However, it’s a long-held view of many experienced PPCers that getting rid of as much heavy lifting as possible — in this case, by handing it off to an automated process — will free up your time for the all-important strategizing that a machine can’t do.
To help make this point

Search Engine Land has learned that Google is expected to launch a brand new Google Search Console, formerly Google Webmaster Tools, API. This has actually been expected for some time, but our sources say it was suppose to go live today but the launch date was pushed to tomorrow morning instead.
Google has been pulling away features from the old API for some time. John Mueller at Google hinted to that a new API was coming several times and that day is coming really soon now. John also was asking webmasters for feedback on what they’d like to see in the API. Plus Google asked for beta testers for the API back in March.
What We Know About the Search Console API Announcement
We know that Google plans on officially announcing the new API tomorrow. When Google announces the API, anyone can begin using it, you won’t need to be “whitelisted” to gain access to it. The old CSV download